Cassie rolls her eyes and snickers at him, and he pushes her playfully. I want this for her. Even if it hurts me.
“You could have told me you wanted to go, sweetie,” I say. “I understand.”
Cassie gives me the textbook, teenager head tilt and scoff, eye roll, and hands to hip all in one fluid motion.
“You wouldn’t have let me call Dad,” she says, so certain.
“Of course I would have,” I say, feeling something like heartbreak at her certainty that I don’t care about her. “Do you have your key? Stop by home and get your things.”
Not all of your things, I want to say. I notice that there are way too many cars in the drive and lining the street. Mom’s neighbor’s cat is sitting on the hood of someone’s Lincoln Navigator.
“So, you don’t care if I stay with Dad for a couple of days?” she asks sheepishly.
A couple of days? I look at Jack to see if he knew this part as well and if it’s ok. He shrugs that, no, he didn’t know that she wanted to stay a couple of days, but then nods that it’s ok with him.
“No, honey, I don’t mind,” I say, although that isn’t true. “I know this is a hard day and you probably want out. That’s ok. I understand.”
She rolls her eyes again. I think she’d rather I didn’t understand her sometimes. Maybe I don’t.
“Go ahead to the car,” Jack says.
She runs to Jack’s car as if I might change my mind. I want to yell at her to “Come back and give your heartbroken mother a hug,” but no good will come of that. Jack and I face off, and I know I should apologize for the vodka bath, but I don’t.
“Where are you staying, by the way?” I ask.
“Sarah and Bruce’s house,” Jack says. “They’re in Europe for several months. It’s free. Still have to pay our mortgage, you know.”
“I didn’t do this, Jack.” I cross my arms in front of me. “I didn’t make you leave.”
“No?”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask, unfolding my arms and stepping back like I’m assuming some fighting stance with a less-than-threatening name like wildcat-caught-in-trap or backed-in-a-corner-bear. “Today is not the day for this.”
“I didn’t start it, Nina.” Jack steps closer to me despite my hostile stance. He reaches for my hand, grabbing hold of my forearm instead. “I don’t want this,” he says and tightens his grip, his face firm and demanding.
I try to yank free of him, but as my arm slips through his grip, he catches hold of my hand. His eyes find my wedding rings still on my finger. He looks at me and I look away. The papers are signed and stamped, filed and final, and I’m still wearing my rings.
“Don’t make it mean something,” I say.
He runs his fingers softly over the rings.
“Shouldn’t it?” he asks, his voice a whisper. “Doesn’t it?”
I pull my hand free when I see Cassie walking back toward us.
“What are you guys doing?” she asks, looking back and forth between us. “Dad?”
“Nothing, Pooh,” he says and lets go of my hand with a thick sigh. “Let’s go.”
Cassie looks at me, imploringly. I nod to her to go on and go.
“It’s ok,” I say. “Everything will be ok.”
Because that’s what you say to your child. How can you not? I want Jack to look back at me when he walks away, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t pause to look at me over the top of the car. He just gets in and leaves.
I pick the mug up off the lawn and go back inside the house. In the kitchen, I rinse out the vodka and retrieve Ray’s slightly cool cup of coffee. When I finally make it back to the living room, Ray is gone. It’s getting late in the afternoon, and most people are saying their good-byes. I have to stop a few times to hug and nod and tell whomever how much I appreciate their being here. A couple of people look at me imploringly—eyebrow lifting, sympathy exuding.
I inch my way through the crowd and out the back door, where I find Ray on the porch. He’s sitting in one of Mom’s lounge chairs, his legs straddled on either side. He’s taken off his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. I hand him the coffee, sit in a lounge chair beside him, and stretch out my legs. We sit for a long few minutes and say nothing. I cut my eyes at him to see what he’s thinking. I can’t see anything.
“He’s five?” I ask, trying to get Ray to talk to me again.
“Yeah,” Ray says, and his tone holds no animosity.
I don’t really know which question to ask first. It dawns on me whose child it is.
“Why didn’t Nicole tell you?”
“She did,” Ray says. He takes a solid drink from the mug, unfazed by the tepid temperature. The late afternoon air shifts back toward cool, and I fold my arms over my chest. Ray looks at me and I unfold.
“Oh,” I say. “When?”
“She told me she was pregnant when she came to visit me at the prison, right after I went in,” Ray says and downs the last of the coffee. “You know, through the glass and all that. She seemed pretty angry at me.”
There’s nothing I can say that will come out right so I don’t say anything. I just watch the sun set behind Mom’s dogwood trees and listen to the sounds of cars driving away, of people returning to the safety of their normal lives.
“I guess I didn’t handle it well,” Ray says, shifting in his chair and biting his lip. “She didn’t come back or call.”
I have to ask. “What did you say when she told you?”
“I said, ‘That’s nice.’ I told her if she was lucky it wouldn’t turn out to be mine.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Let’s pretend it isn’t.’ So that’s what I did.”
I sit up and swing my legs off the lounge chair
